Lot 227

Jiří Kolář (1914 - 2002) OBJECT - GRATER

Jiří Kolář never ceased to be a poet. Although his work is playful and full of puns, his use of collage and chiasm is the sophisticated result of long experimentation. Jiří Kolář places the image, as a mere fragment of reality, into context, while the word becomes an image. He transformed himself from a poet into a visual artist, giving words a three-dimensional form and turning everyday objects into poems. Destruction leads to the creation of a new means of expression, and the story is told by an object that becomes the bearer of the message. The text is destroyed to such an extent that its reading is abstracted into the mere perception of image points and lines, thus preventing conventional perception. The original function of the object that carries the collage is only reminiscent in its shape and becomes an ironic carrier of new meaning. Chiasmage is a collage technique using paper printed with symbols, torn into small pieces and glued to a base in all directions as "chiasmata." Jiří Kolář's work is an extraordinary phenomenon on the art scene. He was a member of Group 42, UB, and Křižovatka. He was an authority and a personality around whom various artists and intellectuals gathered. He coordinated various activities, such as the samizdat edition Petlice, and in 1977 he signed Charter 77. From 1980, he lived with his wife Běla in Paris, where, together with other Czech emigrants, he supported the publication of Revue K. The work on offer was part of an exhibition held at Prague's Galerie 33 Interconex in 1992, which also reproduced the work on a poster for the exhibition. The work comes from the estate of artist Vladimír Preclík.